Currently available financial assessment tools, sometimes referred to as calculators, include credit and debt tools, retirement tools, auto tools, personal insurance tools, investment tools, and home ownership tools. The financial assessment tools provide general financial and retirement advice. However, these tools do not provide specific, actionable advice personalized to the user. In fact, these conventional tools generally carry disclaimers that they are not intended to provide any sort of financial or retirement advice.
Conventional credit and debt tools, for example, receive a list of income and expenditures entered by a user, and then provide a report or chart so the user can see how much he has left to save and where his money is being spent. Some tools provide general advice such as “reduce the expenses you listed; during one month, every time you would ordinarily spend money on one of the items listed as expenses, write down the amount you didn't spend; at the end of the month, add up the total amount of savings for each item and you will see how much money you saved.” The user is otherwise on his own to analyze the information and determine any areas or specific actions for improvement.
Similarly, conventional retirement tools allow a user to enter expected retirement expenses and income, and give the user a listing of his projected financial balances year by year until a certain age, such as 85 years old or 100 years old. Along with the listing, the tool may provide a general statement to the user that he may need to save more or spend less. It is up to the user, however, to analyze the projections and other information and determine any specific action that he should take.